About Me

I'm a mom with two teens, finding the time to create every day. I love color, whimsy, liberated quilting, soothing hand knits and now handspinning! I love to read all my comments, but don't always have time to answer them. Please know that I appreciate each and every one. Please do not use my words or photos without my permission. Thank you for visiting!

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November 23, 2009

Fox & Geese

These Fox & Geese mittens were quite a learning experience for me. I have never gotten very good at stranded colorwork and wanted to improve. I had a basket of sport weight alpaca leftovers to use up (Blue Sky and Frog Tree). So I thought about trying more mittens.

A couple of years ago I made Chloe a pair of Selbu mittens from Folk Mittens. They were a secret Christmas present, knit in peace and quiet in the wee hours of the night when I couldn't sleep due to chemo meds. Those mittens came out a little small, but she still wears them and truly loves them. They still look great and are so incredibly warm. So, it seemed that it was a good time to try more of these. I've had the book, Favorite Mittens by Robin Hansen, in my collection for a long time, but had never given it a good look. There were several likely candidates, but I liked this one the best and still do.

I love the intersections of the brown and red lines. I love those little crosses (the geese). I think the intersections are supposed to be the foxes. I love the name too!

I used two circs, size 4 and probably should have gone down a size. The first one came out just about right, but the gauge is a little loose. The second one is much bigger because I was trying to keep from having tight stitches at the sides by turning the knitting inside out. In the future I wouldn't bother with that.

I also had a hard time picking up the thumb stitches. I can never make that look good. Luckily, that's on the inside of the thumb, so won't be seen much. One other thing I didn't like is that the cuff curls up. I haven't blocked the mittens yet, so I hope that ends the curl. If not, I will try a garter stitch cuff for a few rows next time. And I will make these again some day. I really liked how easy this repeat was to memorize. For now, I've started another pair of stranded mittens in a different pattern.

Comments

Fox & Geese

These Fox & Geese mittens were quite a learning experience for me. I have never gotten very good at stranded colorwork and wanted to improve. I had a basket of sport weight alpaca leftovers to use up (Blue Sky and Frog Tree). So I thought about trying more mittens.

A couple of years ago I made Chloe a pair of Selbu mittens from Folk Mittens. They were a secret Christmas present, knit in peace and quiet in the wee hours of the night when I couldn't sleep due to chemo meds. Those mittens came out a little small, but she still wears them and truly loves them. They still look great and are so incredibly warm. So, it seemed that it was a good time to try more of these. I've had the book, Favorite Mittens by Robin Hansen, in my collection for a long time, but had never given it a good look. There were several likely candidates, but I liked this one the best and still do.

I love the intersections of the brown and red lines. I love those little crosses (the geese). I think the intersections are supposed to be the foxes. I love the name too!

I used two circs, size 4 and probably should have gone down a size. The first one came out just about right, but the gauge is a little loose. The second one is much bigger because I was trying to keep from having tight stitches at the sides by turning the knitting inside out. In the future I wouldn't bother with that.

I also had a hard time picking up the thumb stitches. I can never make that look good. Luckily, that's on the inside of the thumb, so won't be seen much. One other thing I didn't like is that the cuff curls up. I haven't blocked the mittens yet, so I hope that ends the curl. If not, I will try a garter stitch cuff for a few rows next time. And I will make these again some day. I really liked how easy this repeat was to memorize. For now, I've started another pair of stranded mittens in a different pattern.